A year of fun...

Sarah and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary!  Sarah has been sick pretty frequently this past year and has been to the ER a number of times.  I decided to go big for this celebration because she has been faithful and strong through all of the medical problems and she just deserved a break.  We went on a cruise to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay island, and Nassau in the Bahamas.  We left from Miami and this first picture is the view of Miami from our departure.  Amazingly, we didn't have any trouble with our flight from Boston to Miami.  That, I believe, is a first for Sarah. 


After a lengthy boarding process...we finally made it to our room.  On advice from friends we did go for a room with some type of windows.  This is the "lowest" level room you can get with port-hole windows.  Ultimately, we spent very little time in our room but it was great to be able to have natural light in the mornings.  We decided that we would have felt a bit crazy without and light for five days!

Day 1 - Miami
Here I am in the room.  We had a king size bed, tv, love seat, and plenty of closet space.  I guess it would have been nice to have windows that you could open, but our room served us well.

Every night, when we got back to our cabin, we got a little surprise from our housekeeper.  Carnival apparently makes these little animals out of towels and uses them to welcome you back after a long day of fun!

Day 2 - Fun Day at Sea 

On one night of the cruise, we had to dress formally.  We had a good time at dinner but it took a few rounds of asking people to take our picture before we got a good one.  Sarah is very photogenic, but my face kept being obscured by shadows, and people kept taking blurry pictures.  It was nice of them to try though.  

Day 3 - Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos



Our first stop was Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos.  The beaches here were beautiful and the weather was perfect.  We decided to go power snorkeling here because there is a 7000 foot drop off in the ocean floor that we could swim out and see.  For those of you that know me, I am ridiculously afraid of the ocean and all that could be in it...so going to the edge of the abyss was a big step for me. 

This is the beach that we left from to snorkel.  Our guides were really nice and showed us quite a bit.  The lead guide was giving us the lecture about how this is a natural coral reef and not Sea World and we might not see anything.  He said "you'll definitely see fish and if we're lucky we might see turtles, sea stars and possibly barracudas.  He made sure to say that barracudas are not aggressive, but are naturally curious and may get right up in your face. 

Us in the boat, getting ready for adventure. 

 Here's Sarah underwater.   

 And here's my best friend.  Immediately after I jumped in the water, this barracuda was in my face.  I have a bit of a fear of sharks, but this guy was just as bad.  I put my flippers toward him to try and scare him off, but he just followed our group the whole time.   I kept an eye on him.

This is me (Dan) trying to dive to the bottom.  We were in about 35 feet of water and I got close.  The problem, however, was that I had to equalize the pressure in my ears about 3 times on the way down and that slowed my momentum...oh well.

After our snorkeling adventure we hit up Margaritaville.  This place was pretty cool.  They had a huge pool with a swim up bar.  The drinks were obviously over-priced, but you go there for the ambience. 

Sarah with her Pina Colada.

Me with a banana-something-or-other.

 Face of fun!!! Sarah didn't want hers on the blog.

Day 4 - Half Moon Cay, The Bahamas

We woke up at Half Moon Cay (Little San Salvador Island) which is owned by the cruise line.  As a result, it was like being on an extension of the ship.  We used our cruise cards to get food, which did make things easier.

While we were here we went on another scuba adventure, but we got to hold a few different types of sea creatures: Stingray, Sea Star, Conch and Sea Cucumber...hope you're ready for the first one.  A sea cucumber is about as close as I believe I will ever come to holding poop.  It was warm and a mix of squishy and firm.  Very weird.

Sarah's face says it all.

Sea Star - one of Sarah's favorites.

After our sea creature adventure we ate lunch and then went to the beach.  Unfortunately, a storm starting rolling in....but it was cool to watch.  After a few minutes of watching we decided to just go back to the ship, since it was obviously going to be storming for a while.  When we got to the transport boat the waters were very rough and the boat took a while to get docked up with the ship.  We moved across the walkway while it was shifting up and down by a good two feet. 

Amazingly, about ten minutes after we got back on the ship, the island needed to be evacuated.  For the next two hours the ferry back to the ship was completely packed and traveling in the rain.  We missed that...and I can't tell you how happy we were to be in our cabin, showering, and happy:)

Day 5: Nassau, The Bahamas

The final destination on the cruse was Nassau.  Sarah had actually been here about a year and  a half earlier with Liz Z!  She knew that she wanted to show me the Atlantis resort, so we headed straight there.

Those of you who know me, probably know that I don't do well with stressful situations and will just walk away to calm down.  The taxi system at the terminal cause me to go into stressed-Dan world.  We had 3 cabbies trying to get us in their respective cars...so I just walked away.  About ten minutes later I calmed down and found a good guy to take us to the resort.  We only lost 10 minutes, but my mind was at ease...which meant I didn't annoy Sarah, so it was a plus for all:) 

We walked through part of the resort, which was immaculate, and then headed straight to the beach.  We spent a few hours there, getting some sun, and then headed to a local place for lunch.  We tried to get things that wouldn't make Sarah sick, as well as some local beers.  Bahamian beer - good taste, but not much body.  We made sure to buy some rum cakes to bring back.  

We spent some time walking through the marina near the resort and saw the most ridiculous yachts, ever.  The yachts were so big that they had smaller boats and cranes on the deck.  The biggest one we saw had two jet skiis, a small boat, and a life raft on the deck...with plenty of room to spare.  The giant Chicago Blackhawks emblem on the side of the "bridge" made me think it could have been an owner of the hockey team.  Who knows.

I'm not the best with words, but we had a great time.  It was wonderful to celebrate our anniversary together and in such a memorable way.  We loved it.  Thank you all for your friendship, support, and prayers over the past year.  In the words of my best friend Kara: "One down, one hundred to go!"